Six weeks later, Fourmile Fire aftermath a full-time job for victims

People who lost homes struggle to deal with insurance, clean up, rebuilding

By Laura Snider, John Aguilar and Vanessa Miller Camera Staff Writers

Posted:
10/16/2010 05:10:55 PM MDT

Updated:
10/22/2010 01:46:16 PM MDT

Rebuilding Fourmile

Editor's Note: Today the Camera begins an occasional series on survivors of the Fourmile Fire as they try to rebuild their lives.

For Howard Wishner, the relentlessly tedious process of cataloging and pricing every single possession that was in his Fred Road home when it was consumed by flames last month goes something like this:

"You start with one room -- and then you go from room to room -- and you sort of close your eyes," Wishner said. "It's all by memory. The photographs are burned."

Once he has a list of the things he can remember, he has to search for their values, maybe looking online or visiting a store that sells similar things. How much for a couch? A lamp? A book?

Some questions are harder than others: How much for the picture of his great-grandfather, the one he was named after? The heirloom sterling silver tea service that he never used but that he still valued dearly as a reminder of his heritage?

More than a month after the Fourmile Fire began in a rugged canyon west of Boulder on Labor Day, many of the 169 homeowners who lost their houses, their mementos and their material histories are spending every available hour dealing with the aftermath of the blaze.

Howard Wishner, with his dog, Ben, looks over the hole where his Fourmile Canyon house used to stand before it was destroyed by the Fourmile Fire. Wishner is planning to rebuild in the same spot. (Marty Caivano)

"We're getting closer to reality -- because no one really knew what to expect from the city, from the county, from the insurance -- everyone had their own ideas," Wishner said. "Now reality is starting to set in. Things may not be covered which we think should be. There's resistance from insurance companies."

The process or rebuilding will be long, and the emotional toll will be steep, according to Rohini Kanniganti, a holistic family physician in Boulder. At the county meetings she's attended, residents affected by the fire have expressed confusion about whom to talk to regarding their plans to rebuild and concern about the complicated rules.

Richard Nuzzi, left, and his wife, Stephanie O'Hearn, middle, talk with their architect, Jim Logan, about the plans for their new house in Sunshine Canyon last week. "We ve talked about building our dream home and that opportunity would not have come if it hadn t burned down," O Hearn said. "At times, it s kind of sad and at other times, it s kind of exciting."
(
MARK LEFFINGWELL
)

"There is no one single point person to go to -- they don't know who to ask," Kanniganti said. "It's overwhelming. There's a sense of chaos. And there's a tremendous amount of rage. That this is not our fault, and we're feeling imposed upon to redo this."

Building new connections

When Carolyn Nagusky first realized the home she'd lived in for 33 years on Wild Turkey Trail would be lost to the flames -- she was evacuating with her dog, her cat and just a few possessions at the time -- she couldn't shake from her mind a haiku she'd once taught to a class of fourth graders:

Since my house burned down

I now own a better view

Of the rising moon

Ash McFadden describes on Thursday his plans to immediately rebuild a house he owns in Fourmile Canyon. He leased the home to a tenant who had been in the process of remodeling it.
(
MARTY CAIVANO
)

In the spirit of the haiku, Nagusky has labored over the last month to choose gratefulness over sorrow -- hope over worry. It hasn't been easy.

"We're all scrambling around spending endless hours going from store to store pricing the replacement cost for every single thing," she said. "It's tedious. You sit down and try to remember, and you go to the stores where most of your items were purchased."

But even in the weary task of trying to put a price tag on the possessions she once owned, Nagusky has found reason to feel grateful.

"Overall -- across the board -- every place I've been to has been extremely helpful and compassionate," she said. "It's been a process of really making connections -- finding connections in the community -- they were already there, but they are unfolding as we work together. It's almost a tapestry being woven."

Walter Plywaski talks about the escape he made from a German concentration camp in World War II. One of his most valuable possessions that he saved from the Fourmile Fire that destroyed his home was the computer that held his autobiography and historical photos. Plywaski, whose home was destroyed, does not plan to rebuild.
(
PAUL AIKEN
)

Take the employee at Mike's Camera who -- after telling Nagusky they no longer sell film cameras equivalent to the one's she lost -- helped her find similar cameras on eBay. And while he was at it, he helped Nagusky -- who says she's not very tech-savvy -- estimate the value for the autographed Elvis Presley album she'd won from a radio station when she was 12.

Nagusky -- who is not yet ready to even think about whether to rebuild -- has been working long hours to finish compiling her list of possessions so she can make a 60-day deadline imposed by her insurance company.

"There have been very challenging moments," she said. "But I've been letting go of things, realizing that my identity is not where I live -- what I do -- what I have. It's deeper than that. It's within."

Rising out of the ashes

Stephanie O'Hearn and her husband, Rich Nuzzi, wrestled with the same dilemma facing their neighbors of whether to rebuild. Their 3,450-square-foot Victorian home on Sunshine Canyon Drive went up in flames within six hours of the fire flaring up three miles away.

"As we got back up here, we said, 'This is our home,'" said Nuzzi, remarking at how his asparagus plants escaped unscathed. "Once we saw it, there was no deliberation."

Boulder architect Jim Logan, standing just a few feet away from the front steps of Nuzzi's and O'Hearn's destroyed home, unfolds a set of design plans that more than anything signify the start of the rebuilding process in the burn zone.

"We looked at it as a situation of what can come of this," O'Hearn said. "We've talked about building our dream home and that opportunity would not have come if it hadn't burned down. At times, it's kind of sad and at other times, it's kind of exciting."

The couple, who have lived at this property perched at the top of a breath-taking draw for 12 years, plans to have a demolition crew arrive within a week or two to dig out the foundation and remove the stone walls and chimney that are still standing. Next month it's time to break ground, with construction continuing through the winter as the weather permits.

Nuzzi said he hopes the new house is finished next summer. He acknowledges the rebuilding schedule is quick, but he and his wife are living at a friend's house in Boulder that is currently on the market and could sell any day.

"We're designing the house from the inside out," O'Hearn said. "We're looking at how we live our lives and we see what's the most important room -- the kitchen -- and we go from there."

She said they are slimming down the size and profile of their replacement home, from three stories to two, and from more than 3,000 square feet to less than 2,400 square feet. It will also be adorned with green building features, like photovoltaic cells and geo-thermal heating.

"It's super green and that's what we want," she said.

The fire taught the couple that not only do they not need so much house, they don't need so much stuff in their lives. The list of possessions they are submitting to their insurance company is already 1,200 items long and they are convinced they didn't account for everything.

"We want only one junk drawer in the house," O'Hearn laughed.

Creating a new opportunity

At 3 a.m. Sept. 7, former Boulder resident Ash McFadden was asleep in his bed in Ireland, dreaming about the Hammond organ that he'd left in the music room of the home he now rented out in Fourmile Canyon.

"I hadn't dreamed about that organ in years -- I hadn't really dreamed about that organ at all," he said. "I dreamed that it was exactly where the organ sat in the music room in that house in Boulder.

"I was getting sounds out of it I had never made before. All of a sudden, these red and orange spots kept appearing and moving upwards. The organ and I tipped back into some sort of abyss. And that was the end of the dream."

McFadden -- who now runs an Irish planetarium -- couldn't get back to sleep. So he got up, made some coffee and checked his e-mail, where he found a message from his tenant.

And that's how he learned his home had burned to the ground.

McFadden boarded the first available plane back to Colorado and he's been here ever since. He also describes the process of cleaning up the debris, dealing with insurance and making plans to rebuild as a completely consuming process, which he believes will keep him in Boulder through the spring.

"I want to be here until ground is broken," he said. "We've been scuttled by delays, and now it's becoming winter, so I'm guessing that will be in April or May."

And while McFadden is also dealing with the frustration of pricing the priceless -- a lost piano from his mother, a destroyed clock from his father -- he sees the lost home, which he had planned to retire to, as an opportunity more than a tragedy.

"The new house isn't going to be similar," he said. "When I first saw the place in 1994, I said, 'Fantastic location. Gorgeous view. Don't like the house.' Instead of trying to turn someone else's house into my dream house, now I have the opportunity to build it from scratch."

'There is no point'

Just knowing that his beautiful mountain home, along with memorabilia of his childhood in Poland and his survival of the Holocaust, was destroyed in last month's fire is too much to handle. Walter Plywaski said he can't imagine going through the long process of rebuilding and the memories that it would resurrect.

"It's partially the money and partially my emotional state," Plywaski said. "I'm obviously sad about losing the things that cannot be replaced by money. There is no point."

Plywaski, who lived up Left Fork Road for years, said he also doesn't want to return because the area around his now-charred property is "not as beautiful as it used to be."

"Maybe it's time for me to get my ass off the mountain," he said.

The long process involved in rebuilding is daunting, and Plywaski said he doesn't expect to get enough insurance money to buy another house in a new location. So, he said, he's planning to have the property cleaned for resale.

"Then I might buy a balloon and fly around the world," he said. "I'm joking."

Plywaski has been living with a close friend for weeks, and he expects to stay there for another six months. He wants to eventually rent a place or buy a condominium.